Kubernetes for software engineers
As a software engineer, Kubernetes provides the platform where your applications run in production. Understanding core Kubernetes concepts helps you build and deploy reliable applications and work effectively with platform engineering and operations teams.
This page explains how Kubernetes fits into the work of software engineers and highlights common patterns, tools, and best practices.
Why software engineers use Kubernetes
Kubernetes enables software engineers to:
- Deploy applications consistently across environments
- Automate scaling and updates of application workloads
- Implement modern CI/CD pipelines integrated with Kubernetes
- Manage application configuration and secrets
- Observe application health and performance
- Debug issues at the platform level (networking, storage, resource constraints)
- Leverage cloud-native services (service mesh, observability, autoscaling)
What software engineers manage in Kubernetes
As a software engineer, you typically:
- Define Kubernetes manifests for your applications (Deployments, Services, Ingress)
- Configure ConfigMaps and Secrets for application settings
- Implement health checks (liveness and readiness probes)
- Tune resource requests and limits for your application Pods
- Understand and test Service discovery and networking
- Consume observability signals (metrics, logs, traces) exposed through Kubernetes
- Participate in incident response when applications misbehave in Kubernetes
You may also interact with GitOps pipelines or Helm charts provided by your platform team.
Common tools for software engineers
- kubectl: CLI for checking application status and logs
- Helm: Deploy and manage Helm charts for applications
- Tilt / Skaffold: Accelerate inner-loop development and testing on Kubernetes
- Kustomize: Customize application manifests per environment
- ArgoCD / Flux: GitOps-driven deployment workflows
- Prometheus / Grafana: View metrics and dashboards
- Loki / Fluent Bit / EFK stack: Aggregate and view application logs
Common questions software engineers ask
- How do I define Kubernetes manifests for my application?
- How do I deploy my application through the CI/CD pipeline?
- How do I expose my application externally (Ingress, Service)?
- How do I configure application secrets securely?
- How do I monitor my application's health and performance?
- How do I tune resource requests and limits for my Pods?
- How do I troubleshoot when something goes wrong in Kubernetes?
Best practices for software engineers
- Understand the basics of Kubernetes objects your application uses (Deployment, Service, ConfigMap, Secret, Ingress)
- Implement proper liveness and readiness probes in your application Pods
- Request appropriate CPU and memory resources — avoid using defaults
- Follow your team's GitOps or CI/CD processes for managing Kubernetes deployments
- Validate your application’s behavior across environments (dev, staging, production)
- Use Kubernetes-native observability tools to monitor and debug your applications
- Collaborate with platform engineers on Ingress configuration, storage, and advanced networking needs
Next steps
Explore additional role-based guides:
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